The nonprofit Quilt Alliance had a spectacular success at our 4th annual Quilters Take Manhattan benefit. As president of the Alliance, I spend a great deal of time helping to organize all the parts of this event, and it’s great when the hundreds of people who come to learn and party get so excited.

The main program was on Saturday, September 20 at FIT, the Fashion Institute of Technology, with keynote speaker Amy Butler. A hugely talented and successful fabric designer, Amy surprised many by the focus of her remarks: instead of giving the typical overview of her career with a heavy promotion of her fabrics and patterns, she launched into a very personal account of recent struggles in her business, and how she overcame them. It was a courageous presentation, and most people in the room were absolutely rapt. She followed up by answering questions both to the audience at large, and when individuals came up to her at a table piled high with her latest vivid creations.

Mark Dunn checks out the display of his quilts just before QTM.

Amy was followed by Mark Dunn, founder and owner of the magical Moda, a beloved fabric company based in Dallas that has led the industry in precut fabrics and its general high standards for design and quality. He brought a selection of quilts from his personal collection that ran the gamut from traditional pieces made in the 19th and early 20th century to very contemporary art quilts. It was touching that his two sons, who are coming up in the family business, worked as his “quilt wranglers,” holding and carrying these masterpieces so everyone could get a good look.

There were also 5 short videos shot for the Alliance’s oral history project Go Tell It At the Quilt Show. The group who spoke included three quilters, author/collector Roderick Kiracofe and Stacy Hollander, a curator for the American Folk Art Museum.

Melanie Testa told the story of this quilt for her Go Tell It.

Emcee Mark Lipinski kept everybody jumping, and laughing. I can’t print everything he said in his introduction of Amy Butler, but she was laughing hardest of all.

Every year, we try to add new dimensions to the experience at FIT, while also presenting new add-on events on Friday and Sunday.

This year, the extras at FIT included vendors, such as City Quilter, which even brought a Handi Quilter machine for people to play with, as well as authors, who sold and signed books, and a labeling demonstration, conducted by Alliance board member Leslie Tucker Jenison.

There were also lots of quilts to see, including contest quilts from Cherrywood’s “Wicked” challenge, and some of the quilts from the Alliance’s 2014 contest, Inspired By.

Karla Overland vended and brought Wicked contest quilts.

With a longer day that began at 10 am (although tickets were the same price), there was a lunch break this year.

The afternoon concluded with Quilt Match Manhattan, a live quilt-design competition between 3 quilters, who were given fabric and tools, but could bring a yard of fabric from home. One of the 3 invited contestants couldn’t come at the last minute, so Earamicha Brown was pulled up as an audience volunteer to compete with John Kubinec and Allie Aller. Crazy quilter Allie Aller was the winner, according to audience applause, and she won this stunning CHAMP belt made by Alliance board member Frances Holiday Alford.

This year’s extra events included a theater outing on Friday night, plus workshops at City Quilter and a workshop with Victoria Findlay Wolfe that she taught at her loft home.

Another outing that sold out fast was a tour of the Ratti textile center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday afternoon. This was truly an amazing opportunity to see some of the museum’s masterpieces, in the company of curator Amelia Peck, who put together last year’s epic Interwoven Globe show at the Met. You can read more about what we learned of the Met’s textile collections in the September issue of my e-newsletter, Quilt Journalist Tells All.

Closeup of a signature quilt with 360 prominent names.

Every year, QTM’s Saturday fun ends with Quilters Take Manhattan After Dark, a party in the loft home of Victoria Findlay Wolfe. This is an intimate space, and a great opportunity to network with some of the quilt world’s leading lights. One of the comments we consistently get from people who attend Quilters Take Manhattan is that they can’t believe how many members of “quilt royalty” they run into at both the daytime FIT event and the party.

Here I am with Amy Milne, executive director of the Quilt Alliance, celebrating the great day at FIT, and getting ready to open the doors for the After Dark party.

I hope you will consider coming to Quilters Take Manhattan 2015. We already have a date: September 26, 2015. And a keynote speaker: Ricky Tims. To keep abreast of add-on events and the date that tickets go on sale (we sold out 4 months early this year), you’ll want to go to www.QuiltAlliance.org and sign up for the free newsletter, or look for the Quilt Alliance FaceBook page. Remember, all proceeds help the Alliance in its mission to document, preserve and share the stories of quilts, and their makers.

I’ve loved being president of the nonprofit Quilt Alliance, and I think my proudest accomplishment was deciding we should have a benefit in NYC every year. This past weekend marked our third annual Quilters Take Manhattan, and friends, we really took it in style.

A quilter from Australia, now living in North Carolina

Photo by Victoria Findlay Wolfe

Keynoter Hollis Chatelain sells her denim patterns

Last year, attendees told us that they’d love for us to “take more of Manhattan,” so we added vendors, classes, tours of the Garment District and special events, and most sold out well in advance. We even had a quilter’s night on Broadway.

Mark Lipinski’s Class

Since the Alliance only has a paid staff of 3 people, this obviously requires passionate volunteers, and that includes amazing board members who came all the way from Texas, Georgia, Vermont and D.C. to help make this happen. They taught classes, filled goody bags, erected quilt stands, whatever it took. Thanks also to the fab City Quilter shop, which let the Alliance use its classroom for free, and its basement for storing sponsor goodies.

Embellishing Class with Frances Holiday Alford

Once again, our main event was an inspiring and exciting afternoon at FIT, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and we jammed the room with ecstatic quilters. We had great speakers like Hollis Chatelain and Paula Nadelstern, who brought eye-popping quilts.

Paula Nadelstern Meets Her Fans & Sells Fabric

There were primo vendors like Aurifil thread and Cherrywood fabrics, along with a silent auction and raffle prizes. As one person said to me, “This is better than a Hollywood premiere for quilters: I check the name tags and see one famous quilter after another!”

We had a party Saturday night, and that was an over-the-top experience, featuring a quilt design contest between three great quilters: Luke Haynes, Mark Lipinski and Heather Jones. The crowd went wild, watching the 3 create a design in just an hour, helped by people they selected from the audience (it helps when Denyse Schmidt happens to be at your party!)

The photo above is from Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s blog and if you go there, you can see tons more photos, and even a short video that captures the party’s madness (and loud music).

Mark Lipinski Won!Champ Belt by Frances Holiday Alford

On Sunday morning, we had our final outing of the Quilters Take Manhattan weekend, a behind-the-scenes peek at a new quilt exhibition. Stacy Hollander, curator at the American Folk Art Museum, showed us the works from 3 artists she had chosen for alt_Quilts. One was Luke Haynes, an Alliance board member, who talked about his work.

All three of the contemporary artists in this show are amazing, but curator Stacy Hollander also mixed in traditional quilts with similar patterns to create a dialog across the centuries.

Luke’s work is at Right, and the other quilt was made by British soldiers in the 19th century

As makers ourselves, we all found it fascinating to watch the museum “make” an exhibition: they were still adding touches to the show, and painting the artists’ names on the wall. This terrific show will run until January 5.

Save the date for next year! The main event will be Saturday, September 20, and our keynote speaker will be the “it” girl of fabric design, Amy Butler.